Even with the perfect service or product for your target audience, some of them will need a little push or an extra incentive to take action.
That’s where urgency comes into play. It can make all the difference between someone buying RIGHT NOW or thinking “Maybe one day”… and then forgetting about it.
But how can you create urgency in your sales funnel successfully and ethically?
I’ll show you 5 strong tactics and examples as well as common mistakes to avoid.
Why use urgency in your sales funnel?
Simple: because it’ll help you sell more and faster!
Urgency works so well because it taps into one of the strongest human emotions: fear. Specifically? Fear of missing out.
In fact, 60% of sales are driven by FOMO marketing. So, for example, if your offer expires or only the first 10 people receive an exclusive discount, your audience will be more likely to take action.
Otherwise, without urgency, they could delay their decision, and you’ll lose the momentum. When that happens, you run the risk of missing out on that sale, too.
Difference between ethical and false urgency
You might be wondering: “Is it ethical to use urgency in your sales funnel?”
It is, but only if you’re NOT lying to your audience!
- Ethical urgency – You’re telling the truth. Your offer, discount or available spots will genuinely run out after a set amount of time, purchases or bookings
- False urgency – Also known as fake scarcity, it’s about creating an artificial sense of limited availability around your product, service or discount. For example, a coach might say that they only have availability for 1 more client over the next 6 months. In reality? They’re onboarding 5 new ones. Another common example of fake scarcity is countdowns tied to a discount: a sales page promises you that the offer is only available for 24h before the price goes up again. When you visit it one day later, though? The countdown is still there… because it refreshed itself!
Sure, false urgency might help you sell more. But if your audience finds out you lied to them? You’ll lose their trust, and it could damage your reputation.
So, at ScoreApp, we only recommend using urgency in your sales funnel ethically.
How to ethically use urgency in your funnel to drive sales
Now that you know all about ethical and false urgency, how can you include the former in your funnel? Here are 5 popular tactics and ideas.
1. Create time-limited offers
These are perfect to inspire FOMO: if your customers don’t take action in time, the price will go up, or the offer will disappear. Poof!
A super effective way to do this with your landing page and emails? Pair up your written copy with a countdown timer. This will give your audience a visual reminder of how long they have left to take action, compelling them to waste no time.
When your sales funnel starts with a ScoreApp-powered quiz lead magnet, you can create scarcity with a strategic countdown timer.
For example, as well as your standard landing pages and emails, you could use it for bespoke time-limited offers for your quiz participants.
- Your quiz will pre-qualify them and segment them based on their answers
- Their results page will show them a targeted offer that’s relevant to the challenges or goals they shared (in other words, something they won’t be able to say no to!)
- The discount will only be available for a set amount of time after they completed the quiz
- You can then remind them about it through your automated follow-up emails
Create a FREE ScoreApp quiz and countdown timer
2. Share limited availability
If you run a product-based business, you could offer some limited edition items. If it’s service-based, you could cap your number of monthly clients or weekly strategy sessions.
For example, take ScoreApp’s 1-2-1 session scorecard template.
- You can use it to offer different types of calls, consultations and strategy sessions based on your participants’ quiz answers
- Because it connects to your calendar, you can choose to limit your availability, too. For example, you could lead with “I only offer 6 of these sessions per month. So, book yours now to avoid waiting +4 weeks to solve your problem.”
Limit your availability and create FOMO with a FREE ScoreApp quiz
3. Early-bird specials
Reward your first and fastest customers with an exclusive discount or bonus.
A strategic and effective way of doing this while building momentum?
- Create a waitlist for your offer
- Attach a quick quiz to it so that you can gather a tonne of data and even feedback on your offer before going all in
- Segment your subscribers and automate more personalised emails
- Promote an exclusive, subscriber-only discount before announcing your launch everywhere else
With this strategy, you could also choose to create different and more personalised early-bird offers for each segment.
Create a quiz, waitlist and early-bird discount for FREE with ScoreApp
4. Add bonus offers
Urgency doesn’t only work with discounts. You can also harness it by offering incentives and bonuses to your audience (so, if they take action faster, they’ll get more value).
For example, the first 10 people to sign up for your new service will enjoy a 1:1 session with you, too. If someone buys your course within the next 3 days? They’ll access a secret module with extra bonuses.
Once again, you can use ScoreApp’s countdown timer on your landing pages, results pages and emails to remind your audience to take action now.
Share bonus offers with a FREE ScoreApp quiz
5. Personalised messaging
You don’t necessarily need a discount or deadline to sell your offer faster. In some cases, it’s enough to craft a highly relevant and strategic message for your target audience.
For example, what’s the cost of NOT taking action? How would it impact their life or business? What negative ripple effect would it have?
Of course, for this urgency tactic to work, you must really know your customers and what makes them tick. So, how can you craft the right personalised message for them? Easy: starting with a quiz!
- Ask them strategic questions to understand their situation
- Segment them accordingly
- Set up automated results pages and emails that focus on their problem
- Craft your message around it, highlighting the cost of NOT solving it
Use a FREE ScoreApp quiz to create urgency with personalised messaging
Avoiding common mistakes with sales funnels
Urgency is a powerful marketing tactic but it won’t fix a bad funnel!
So, to get the most out of yours, avoid (or solve) these common mistakes:
- Undefined or wrong target audience – Run market research to identify the types of customers who actually need and want your offer. Then, focus all your marketing efforts on them
- Weak lead generation – People can’t enter your sales funnel if they don’t know you exist! So, diversify your lead generation across different platforms and tactics, and create a strong lead magnet (like a compelling quiz) to get more sign-ups
- Ineffective lead nurturing – Once someone has shared their contact details with you, keep showing them relevant and personalised content (for example, by automating different email sequences for each segment)
- Poor conversion rates – You should aim for at least 3-7%. If it’s less, analyse your funnel and run some A/B testing to find out where the problem is
- Lack of follow-ups – From the initial lead magnet to your sales calls: if you never follow up with your prospects, you’re leaving a tonne of money on the table!
- Ignoring analytics and customer feedback – Base your sales funnel on data, not guesswork and assumptions
- Misalignment between sales and marketing – Make sure your teams are communicating regularly, are sharing consistent messages and have access to the same data (for example, a prospect’s quiz results)
- Overlooking customer retention – Your sales funnel shouldn’t end after that first purchase! Implement post-engagement strategies to retain your customers and upsell to them (like loyalty programmes, incentives for referrals or personalised offers)
When all the stages of your funnel are aligned, it’ll keep bringing you leads and sales automatically. And if you add urgency? Watch them skyrocket even faster!
Use ScoreApp to convert more customers in your sales funnel
While fake scarcity can backfire and lose your audience’s trust, ethical urgency will boost your funnel and get you more sales faster.
With ScoreApp, you can create urgency in lots of different ways, such as:
- A countdown timer for a limited-time offer or bonus, including personalised ones for each segment
- Scorecards to book different types of strategy sessions and consultations, connecting them to your calendar and capping them based on your availability
- An early-bird offer sent to a segmented and highly engaged waitlist
- Personalised messages that reference each participant’s situation and highlight the cost of not taking action
Start selling more by using urgency in your sales funnel ethically and strategically: create your ScoreApp quiz today and for FREE.
